The US Senate just passed a potential gun control bill with an interesting feature: it would open juvenile justice and children’s psychiatric records to background checks, at least for those between the ages of 18 and 21 who want to purchase a firearm. “The bill requires that background checks for 18-to-20-year-olds who buy guns from federally licensed dealers include juvenile criminal and psychiatric records,” reports Reason.
Politics aside, it’s understandable that a gun dealer should know the background of a young adult who wants to purchase a firearm. At the same time, the bill creates a clash between two “liberal” virtues: gun control and the protection of children who commit offenses from being permanently labeled as criminals.
As the federal Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP) recently stated, “Youth with juvenile records frequently experience collateral consequences of their arrest or adjudication, which may include difficulty accessing educational services, obtaining employment, serving in the military, and finding and maintaining housing.” For many years, our state and federal governments have taken measures to ensure that a child’s delinquent activity does not follow him into adulthood. This proposed law, like the provisions of the Adam Walsh Act that created a “juvenile sex offender registry,” chop away at that concept.
I shot my first (and only) deer at 15, and I taught my teenaged boys how to handle a rifle. At the same time, I can understand placing limits on the outright purchase of firearms by young adults. As we’ve learned more over the past 20 years, science has shown us that the brain of an 18-year-old is still developing and is prone to impulsive actions. Criminologists have known for years that individuals aged 18-21 are those most likely to commit a violent crime. But is the solution to allow young people of this age to purchase weapons while opening up their juvenile records to scrutiny?
Another significant issue is that the National Crime Information System (NCIS) and its state-level complements don’t necessarily include in their databases juvenile delinquency offenses. Enforcing this new requirement could be expensive for the states and expose otherwise confidential delinquency data to the wrong eyes.
Perhaps a better approach might be to require that individuals in this age group have a parent or guardian to “co-sign” on a firearm purchase with certain exceptions for those who are serving in the military, law enforcement, or similar areas. After all, that’s what we generally do with this age group regarding student loans, hotel reservations, and the like.
Thoughts?